Gilderoy's helping hand
by Bagge
Summary: Gilderoy Lockhart, Hogwart's most handsome Defence teacher since Gregory the Smarmy, never hesitates to help a student in predicament. Ginny can attest to that.


**Gilderoy's helping hand**

_Gilderoy Lockhart, Hogwart's most handsome Defence-teacher since Gregory the Smarmy, never hesitates to help a student in predicament. Ginny can attest to that. Charcters belong to Rowling._

He looked himself in the mirror and nodded aprovingly. The mirror image gave him a thumb up. The new dress robes fitted perfectly. The violet fringes were a stunning detail, maybe a bit to... unconventional for some people, but then, he wasn't conventional. He was Gilderoy Lockhart! Perhaps the collar should be just a bit higher? He adjusted it and twirled to admire the result. Yes, however hard to believe, he was actually looking even more smaching now. He...

There was a knock on the door, and Gilderoy quickly turned away from the mirror. He adjusted his smile and made sure the light in the room made him justice, then he waved with his wand, and the door opened. A bleak girl he vaugely remembered from his first-year class entered hesitantely. Ah, yet another fangirl...

"Please, enter my dear," he said with a patented Gilderoy-smile, and the girl took a few hesitating step into his office. She was readhaired and her face was speckled with freckles. Gilderoy had a weak memory of there running around quite a few students at this shool who resembled her enough to probably be her siblings, but right now he couldn't remember her name. She looked thin and pale, however, and there were black bags under her eyes. She feverently clang to a worn, black book. Even Gilderoy could see that something was amiss.

"What can I help you with, darling?" he asked with another radiating smile and gently manoveroued her to a chair that wasn't cramped with any stacks of photos, hair potions or books waiting to be signed. She gave him an axious look as she sat down on the edge of the seat.

"Please," she whispered. "I need..." she hestiated, and Gilroyd filled in.

"A signed photo of the one and incredible Gilderoy Lockhart? Fear not, my dear! You shall have it! And one for your little friends as well!" And he produced his pechoch feather quill with a practised move. The girl, however, shook her head with an almost scared expression.

"No... I mean... I need your help..."

"Well," Gilderoy said, somewhat annoyed about her refusal, "spit it out then. What can I do for you?" The girl, for some reason, gave the book she was carrying a glance of pure dread, and then she abruptly stood up, and started to talk very quickly, her eyes locked on Gilderoy's face.

"You've got to help me!" she pleaded with panic in her voice. "He's in my head... He talks to me when I sleep... There are times when I don't remember what I have done... The chickens... Mrs Norris... I think I might be... You're the defence teacher! You've done so many brave things! You've got to help me!!!"

Gilderoy was somewhat taken aback by the urgency in the girls plead.

"Dear girl," he begun and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, "Fear not. Nothing will harm you in the presence of the one and only..."

"I think I'm Slytherin's heir," the girl whispered with tears streaming from her eyes. He frowned.

"No, that won't do. I will discover and overpower Slytherin's heir eventually, of course. But it can't be a little girl. It must be someone with an aura of evil and nastiness. Someone that has the manner of a Dark Lord. After the Wagga-wagga werewolf, my audience has certain expectations after all." The girl looked up at him in disbelief.

"What?" she yelled. "I don't care how it will look in the book. You must help me!"

"Oooops, it seems like I've said a bit to much," Gilderoy admitted. "No fear, I will leave you with good memories of this meeting." And he pointed the wand at her.

"_Obliviate."_

"Now, how shall we handle this?" he muttered for himself, as he mused over what false memory he should implant. "You - a lovesick and star struck teenage girl - came to see your great hero, the incredible and most handsome Gilderoy Lockhart, and ask for his autograph. However, my charm overwhelmed you, and you nearly fainted in my office... yes, that will do."

Gilderoy turned to the girl again, but interrupted himself as he saw her face. Instead of the dazed puzzlement oblivated people usually express, the girl was radiating of pure, undiluted joy and thankfulness.

"He's... gone!" she whispered and a broad smile emerged from her still teary face. "You removed him from my head!" And before Gilderoy knew it, she had thrown herself around his neck and given him a hard kiss.

"He's gone!!!" she cried jubilantly. "Thank you so much! You are my hero, Gilderoy! I will take this evil thing to Dumbledore immediately!" And radiating of happiness and relief, the girl danced out from his office with her rugged old book and ran away through the corridors of Hogwarts.

Gilderoy followed her with his eyes, and when she was out of sight he thoughtfully closed the door. He was not entirely sure what had just happened, but the girl seemed to be in better spirits, and he supposed that that, after all, was his main responsibility as a teacher. He hadn't had time to implant a false memory, but the girl didn't seem to be a danger to him, so he supposed it wasn't very important. The false memory he had planned was nothing but the truth anyway. And really, who could blame a girl for acting a bit weird when she met the wonderful, truly one-of-a-kind Gilderoy Lockhart?


End file.
